Merry Christmas...and all that jazz

Merry Christmas to all! Chris and I decided to start a tradition where we buy an ornament for Imogen each year that commemorates the past 365 days in some way, shape or form. So as Imogen grows, we will be able to see how she has changed over time and what her likes were. This year, we chose a Cheerio's ornament. I could not pass this one up when I saw it at S.W. Randall. Imogen is a Cheerio lover -- and is so adorable when she tells us she wants them! The ornament now adorns our tree and will for the next many, many years.

We had a wonderful holiday shared with lots of family and friends. Our activities started on Christmas Eve at our home. Imogen opened her presents from Santa and from her Nana and Grandpa in Mississippi.

First, the presents from Santa, which she opened with enthusiasm. Her stocking contained two little stuffed animals, a doggie and a kitty. Here she is hugging the doggie.

Then she very nicely sat in her new chair at her new table holding her new bear while waiting for the next gift. Have I mentioned that she has an infinite love for babies and stuffed animals?!?! I love her expression in this picture -- sort of like, "mommy, stop taking my picture!"

After opening a couple gifts in her chair, we moved to the ground where the sun wasn't so bright. She, of course, had to take her little kitty and continued to hug and kiss it while opening all her gifts.

Then, she proceeded to open all subsequent gifts with only one hand, holding the kitty in the other hand.

And with gifts still unopened, she decided she had had enough and played with the kitty some more. She layed on the floor and talked to the kitty, hugged the kitty and kissed the kitty.

One gift she did manage to open was an awesome shopping cart from her Nana and Grandpa. She loves this thing! As soon as we got it together, she took off around the house with it. Of course, her kitty and doggie are safely inside going for a ride too.

Next we move to Christmas Eve dinner at my Nana's house. Imogen received several toys, but instead decided the water bottles were more fun and showed us how many she could carry at one time. She looked so pretty in her classic red satin dress!

She took a break from the water bottles to wrestle her (2nd) cousin, Luke, to see who could get into his chair first. It is an adorable mini-recliner and Imogen loves it. Too bad it went home to Kentucky with him.

Imogen then moved to the television and watched whichever football game was on. She cheered as each team made good plays. She does love her sports thanks to daddy.

We spent the night at my parents house on Christmas Eve. Imogen woke up to more gifts -- the most exciting of which was a new kitchen! This thing is so fun; it makes boiling water sounds and frying pan sounds when you put the respective pans on the little burner. She is going to have tons of fun buying food at the store with her shopping cart and cooking it all in the kitchen!

She only opened a few presents Christmas morning before telling us she had had enough. The rest of her gifts were opened later in the day by me....but Imogen did help with a few when she felt like it. She was so funny when she (or I) opened clothes -- she would hold them up to herself and exclaim "wow" !! It was so cute! She was honestly just as excited for the clothes as she was the toys!

Later in the morning, Imogen and her Zianna decided to rest together with Zianna's puppies, Lady (black) and Duke (red). Imogen LOVES her dogs! They are both mini-dachunds and are very cute I must say (but we want nooooooo dogs right now). I would like to point out that this picture was not posed. I walked in to find them all laying like this and cracked up!

Finally, our festivities rolled over to the 26th where we had fun with friends and family at their Christmas party at my parents house. It was so wonderful to see everyone -- many of whom we haven't seen since this summer or even last Christmas. Since I was behind the camera much of the holiday, I don't have many pictures with Imogen, but here is a nice one of us.

And Imogen was on the go most of the day, so this is the best family picture we got. She was trying to get down the entire time I was holding her.

Merry Christmas from the Boyle Family!! <3

18 Months Old

Yesterday Imogen hit the 18-month milestone and today was her Well Baby visit with the doctor to make sure she's growing on track -- which she is! Here are her stats:

Weight: 23 pounds 6 ounces (36th percentile)
Length: 31 3/4 inches (38th percentile)

The doctor was very happy with her growth and overall development. She had to get two shots to finish off the series for the Pc and HiB. She was a trooper, but definitely knew what was going on as soon as the nurse swabbed her leg with alcohol. Imogen started crying at that moment and didn't stop until after the shots were over. It was so sad :-( However, she quickly forgot about the pain as we wisked her out of the office and went out for breakfast. We are not sure which vaccination we are going to start next, but talked with the doctor today about what our options are. We have decided to put Imogen on a selective and delayed vaccination schedule, which means that she won't be getting some vaccines and we'll delay others that can be given at an older age. Barring any sicknesses over the winter, we won't go back to see him for another six months -- which I am sure Imogen will smile over.

Here are a few pictures of our 18-month-old girl playing. It is getting harder by the day to capture a photo of her looking at the camera, but I will never stop trying!

Happy (Belated) Halloween & Other Stuff From October

We have been a very busy family lately and our poor blog has taken a back seat to our action packed lives. However, I am hoping to get back to normal with several posts each month of what's happening with us. For now, I wanted to take a few minutes to post some pictures that I really love from last month and Halloween. Hope you enjoy them :-)

Imogen has always loved reading books, but now she will actually sit and let you read the page before turning it! Here she is reading one of her favorite books with Daddy called "Yummy Yucky" She highly recommends it! (and so do we!)

She has mastered the art of sippy cup drinking and has a couple different ones she uses. I love this photo because it's like she is trying to chug the water! LOL She doesn't drink like this all the time, but does do it every once in a while and I always find it funny.

Imogen LOVES dogs. And while we have no plans in our future to get one, she completely enjoys playing with my parents and sisters dogs! There are plenty in our family to keep her occupied that we are not directly responsible for :-) Here she is with the queen-bee of my parents house, Tessie. In the first picture, she is hugging Tessie and the second picture, she is sitting on her -- in other words, Tessie loves her back.

A picture with Minnie to get all prepped for Halloween!

We didn't go trick-or-treating on Halloween this year because she is really too young (in our eyes) to eat candy yet. However, we did get to go to a costume Birthday party for one of her good friends, Lily! Here she is strutting her stuff in her best Minnie Mouse attire complete with ears and red sparkly shoes.

We had a great October and hope you did too!

80s Baby, Yea!

At the beginning of October we celebrated in retro-style by attending an 80s Themed Birthday Prom for our good friend, Erin. It was so awesome and the whole fam dressed the part. Chris wore a white polo with popped collar, white shoes and an awesome visor that you definitely haven't seen for decades. I wore a knit dress, decorative neon tank, leggings, hot pink legwarmers and silver shoes. Of course I was rocking blue eyeshadow, big earrings and a side ponytail with scrunchie! (and yes, I actually bought a scrunchie!) Imogen was wearing a large printed dress and also wearing legwarmers. I wanted to put her hair into a side ponytail too, but the girl will not keep anything in her hair.

We had a great time eating lots of good food, dancing to some 80s tunes and watching our friends sing karoke. A couple gals painted a backdrop where all the couples could get their "prom" photo taken -- just like old times! (see top photo) There were tons of balloons and Imogen kept signing "ball" and stood there staring up at all of them for a lot of the evening.

Imogen and I with the birthday girl, Erin!

80s Footwear

Imogen and her balloons

We had a great time! Happy Birthday Erin!!

The Hug Heard Around the World

From the evening of September 30th...the tender moment of reuniting with daddy. Imogen had such a grip on his shoulders she would not let go. I had often wondered if she missed him like I did -- I think at the very moment of seeing him, her world was right again.

Yum Yum!

Imogen is now at the point where she will experiment with new foods -- and recently has tried chocolate! She was hesitant at first, but warmed up to it in no time and really enjoyed eating a chocolate popsicle with me :-)

Below are pictures of her eating some pasta, which is definitely one of her favorites. When we cook spaghetti, we'll chop up a bit and put a pile in front of her to feed herself and she just goes to town. Since she really won't keep a bib on, we almost always end up changing her shirt after a particularly messy meal like this.

We taught Imogen how to do sign language and have LOVED her being able to tell us what she wants when she wants it. The bottom picture is her telling me "more" because she is almost done chewing and needs another bite on deck...and she needs it now!

A Visit from Violet

Last weekend our friends stopped by with their baby, Violet. We first met Violet and her family back in January when I was searching out babies to donate my extra breastmilk. Here was our first mention of her -- they are the local Pittsburgh family. We've visited with them several times since January, at first just getting to know each other, but now to catch up on what's going on. To date, I have donated 1,015 ounces of breastmilk and Violet has been the recipient of all but 200 ounces of it. It makes me so happy to know that another baby is benefiting from my milk the way that Imogen has and I am very proud of that.

Violet is now 19 months old and a strong, vibrant, healthy little girl! This visit was the first that we got to see her walking, see her new teeth, and hear her chatting away. I also love her hair -- something that has grown out a lot since we saw her last back in July. She also has a little more chub on her than we've ever seen and I love it! Imogen had a blast playing with her and they enjoyed a game of "pass the bear" back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

I made the knitted dress that Violet is wearing and gave it to her a couple months ago. It now fits and she looks adorable in it! I chose the color scheme (with the help of Chris!) and the colors are perfect for her. She is a very special miracle baby, born at 24 weeks 1 day, weighing 1 pound 2 ounces. Every time I see her, I am amazed at how, with the grace of God and some modern medicine, even the tiniest of babies can go on to flourish!

Pittsburgh Pride Longies

I recently finished Imogen's first knitted pants of the fall/winter season, and I used a beautifully dyed yarn that I purchased locally from another Pittsburgh-ian. No one could have matched the colors of the Steelers and Penguins better! Imogen will get tons of use out of them during the football and hockey season this year and we even have an awesome matching jersey. Action shots to follow, but I don't have any just yet.

Yarn By: Maggie of Burgh Baby Gear
Yarn Type: BFL Aran
Colorway: Pittsburgh Pride

15-Month Well Baby Visit

Today I took Imogen to her 15-month Well Baby Visit with Dr. Lincoln. I can't believe she is so big already! The receptionists in the office always say, "Wow! Look how big she is! I remember when she was this little." Have I mentioned that we really love our doctor and his office? Anyway, Imogen's stats are:

Weight: 22 pounds 6 ounces (39th percentile)
Length: 30.5 inches (46th percentile)
Head: 45.5 cm (50th percentile)

He said she is growing wonderfully and looks like a healthy little girl. She had to get one shot, her last DTaP for quite some time, and took it like a champ. Seriously I think it was the best shot experience we've had so far. I also got some paperwork to take Imogen in to get her blood drawn and tested for lead among other things. I'm sure that will be fun.

Anyway, just wanted to give everyone a quick update!

Sittin' on the Pot

A couple nights ago, Imogen was playing in the kitchen cabinets that hold all our pots and pans. Normally she would just take a few out and maybe slide one across the tile making all sorts of loud noise before abandoning the items as boring. But this day was different. She grabbed one of our large pots and carried it to the family room. I watched her as she then stepped one foot in, then the other in and attempted to squeeze her whole body down into it! LOL! It was soooo funny to watch! She couldn't get herself the entire way in, so she ended up just sittin' on the pot -- and she was so very proud of herself :-)

We already have a potty seat for the real 'pot' and Imogen sits on it at least once a day to start learning what is coming in the future. I can't wait until she uses that pot all the time!